


the never-ending us

by arabmorgan



Category: Produce 101 (TV), Wanna One (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-17
Updated: 2018-12-22
Packaged: 2019-09-21 06:12:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 7,791
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17038229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arabmorgan/pseuds/arabmorgan
Summary: In every world, in every universe, in every dimension – the myriad ways in which they intersect, their very atoms drawn to each other through time and space, aching for completion with every fibre of their beings.Or, drabbles fornielsung week.





	1. begonia

**Author's Note:**

> I feel a bit strange about this series. Not all of these chapters are pretty, or what you would call an ideal relationship, but I'd like to think that they're human (except, well, when they're literally not).

It’s funny, how easily a single decision can change someone’s entire life.

For instance, Daniel deciding to set his alarm for 6.15 AM instead of 6 AM. There is an accident on the road to the bus station and he ends up getting caught in the resulting jam instead of just narrowly missing it, and his bus to Seoul is gone by the time he stumbles into the interchange, wide-eyed and panicked.

He reaches Seoul two days later instead, missing the B2M Entertainment auditions by less than twenty-four hours.

It doesn’t matter all that much to Daniel, except for the fact that he may have missed out on an additional chance to become an idol trainee. He auditions for other companies instead, dogged and optimistic, but sometime around his second week in Seoul, he gets caught up in a street dancing competition.

It’s far more _loud_ than he’s used to, and rather more aggressive, but his body moves all on its own anyway. These dance crews are just as competitive as any entertainment company, and possibly twice as hungry, and when one of them approaches Daniel at the end of the day with a proposition – _join us_ – he thinks, _Why not?_

A few months later, B2M joins the massive conglomerate CJ to form the subsidiary MMO Entertainment, but that particular piece of news flies right over Daniel’s head. It’s not as if it holds any relevance for him after all.

He isn’t an idol trainee, and he certainly doesn’t join Produce 101 two years later. Instead, he spends the time making a name for himself in the underground dance scene. He learns to drink well rather than giggling tipsily over everything his friends say. He adds to his vocabulary at least a dozen new swear words that he’d never heard before setting foot in Seoul, and he never does get rid of his Busan accent – everyone around him seems to adore it after all.

He gets a small tattoo on the underside of his forearm, and another between his scapulae, and he thinks fairly seriously about having his eyebrow pierced before deciding against it in the end.

It really is funny, how a single decision changed Kang Daniel’s entire life.

But perhaps it is just as funny how some things never change, or simply can never be wholly eradicated, no matter how many tornados the butterfly causes with every inconsequential flap of its wings.

For instance, his passion for dance. His odd ability to make everyone he meets love him in one way or another.

The first meeting of Kang Daniel and Yoon Jisung, somehow and somewhere, in every possible iteration.

It is 2019, and the snow is a thick blanket on the ground, with more fluttering down too thickly through the air to really be called pretty, the powdery flakes illuminated by the glow of the overhead streetlamps. Daniel is trudging home with an umbrella over his head, head tucked down into his shoulders like a tortoise despite the thick padding enveloping most of his lengthy frame.

He almost misses the still figure standing by the roadside, hunched in much the same way he is, dressed in a long coat but with a dusting of white on his uncovered dark hair. The traffic light blinks green insistently across from him, but the man remains motionless, looking down at the faint glow that can only come from his phone even as the snow continues to fall.

There’s something tragically desolate about the sight, Daniel thinks. It’s something about the smallness of the man’s being, like he’s shrinking into himself the longer he looks down at his phone, or perhaps it’s just the way snowflakes are collecting on the shoulders of his coat and brushing by the tips of his red ears while he continues to linger in the cold.

But then again Daniel’s always been prone to fits of romantic fantasy. Years in the cutthroat underground industry has never quite managed to shake that out of him.

In one possibility, Daniel keeps walking. He reaches the tiny apartment he calls home in under ten minutes, where he sets his umbrella out to dry and shrugs off his padding, already damp with melting snow. He takes a long, hot bath that soothes muscles sore from dancing, and he doesn’t meet a man named Yoon Jisung that day, but that doesn’t mean that he never will.

Or perhaps this is all they will see of each other in this lifetime, just another set of footsteps passing by whom Jisung never turns to catch a glimpse of; a stranger who crosses Daniel’s mind fleetingly for less than a minute and never again.

In another possibility, Daniel stops in his tracks. He makes an abrupt turn and approaches the stranger, who flinches and looks up at him with a startled gaze when Daniel stops right beside him. He is wearing a black mask, leaving only his eyes and the very top of what seems like a formidably high nose bridge exposed to Daniel’s scrutiny.

“It must be really cold,” Daniel offers with a shy smile, “being out here without an umbrella.” The man smiles then, eyes softening into barely-arched curves of tentative friendliness as he lowers his phone.

“I’m Jisung,” he says, far more cheerily than Daniel is expecting, and maybe something in the world grinds into place at that, at the rightness of it, the very first moment of the rest of their lives.

There are other possibilities too – countless more – but that day, Daniel doesn’t keep walking. He decides to stop.


	2. snapdragon

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have weird feelings about this chapter bc it's a bit ... but anyway, I wrote it so here. Warning for non-con blood drinking.
> 
> Anyway, recommended to read the first chapter before this! These are the only 2 'directly' related ones, although all 7 will have an overarching theme and will (hopefully) end up as a cohesive work.

Parallel universes are an odd concept, for they never do run truly parallel to each other. The entire point of parallel universes is, after all, the divergence, that one juncture in which two paths split off from one another, leading on to timelines that are very much un-parallel in nature.

For instance, the moment when Daniel stops, eyes fixing on the lone figure standing on the kerb, just two steps away from the tarmac.

In this possibility, he is not hungry, but he is just a little bit greedy.

The stranger flinches and looks up at him with a startled gaze when Daniel stops right beside him, and that is really all he needs. Those dark eyes glaze over with enough speed to surprise even Daniel himself – either the man is terribly weak-willed, or he has more on his mind than resisting an ambush compulsion – and he puts his hand in Daniel’s without any fuss at all.

The phone in his other hand is still glowing, and Daniel catches a glimpse of a Naver headline along with a picture of some pop group on its screen before it fades to black.

“What’s your name?” Daniel asks gently.

The man blinks at him dazedly, his grip tightening slightly on Daniel’s hand as if steadying himself. “I’m Jisung,” he answers slowly, and Daniel nods.

They don’t go far, just to an alley a little further down that Daniel knows quite well will be deserted at this time of night. It’s not as if he intends to take very long – just a quick snack and then he’ll be on his way.

He doesn’t even bother to remove the mask covering much of the other man’s face, pulling directly at the lapel of his coat to bare a very pretty-looking neck that is swiftly goosepimpling in the frosty weather. It’s both annoying and exciting how much smaller than him Jisung is, and how much lower his neck is in comparison to Daniel’s mouth, and he ends up hoisting the other up so that his legs are dangling limply about Daniel’s waist.

The compulsion wears off the moment his fangs slide into Jisung’s neck, earning a tiny grunt from the other’s mouth as he slowly begins to regain awareness of his surroundings. Daniel tightens his grip, pressing Jisung’s shoulder against the wall with one hand and gripping his hip with the other.

He barely registers the way Jisung starts to struggle, slowly at first and then more strongly, his chest heaving with confusion and terror and pain, his blood pressure rising so quickly that blood starts to spurt down Daniel’s throat. He takes that as his cue to retract his fangs carefully, swiping his tongue over the sizable puncture wounds so that they scab over before Jisung can lose any more blood.

“Everything’s okay,” he says softly, pulling back and meeting Jisung’s gaze, throwing the full force of his will behind his words.

Jisung only shakes his head, blinking rapidly to ward off the fog threatening to cloud his mind. His eyes are very wide and very lucid as he pushes ineffectually against Daniel’s chest.

So, not weak-willed after all – just preoccupied. Daniel can still taste it on his tongue, the lingering sadness running through Jisung’s veins, and he abruptly feels bad for probably making someone’s shitty day even worse.

“Sorry,” he mumbles, shoulders hunching as he sets Jisung back down on the ground, holding him steady when he inevitably stumbles, light-headed from the sudden blood loss. “You were just standing there, and I was passing by, so –”

It’s pretty terrible, as excuses go.

Jisung shakes his head again, looking bewildered. “It’s fine,” he says blankly, in a way that suggests everything is not at all fine. Daniel feels utterly awful. He’s never drunk blood from anyone quite so sad before.

“Were you, uh,” he starts hesitantly, “going somewhere? I could walk you there.”

The look Jisung gives him is incredibly wilting. “You just…attacked me and drank my blood,” he says incredulously, his voice coming out muffled from behind his mask. “And now you want to walk me home?”

Daniel’s mouth half-opens, wondering if there is even a correct answer to that question. A cautious “Yes?” is what he settles for, one corner of his mouth twisting down hesitantly as he flicks nervous glances between the snow-covered ground and Jisung’s face.

Jisung stares at him, brows drawing together in an odd mix of disgust and confusion. “I –” he starts, and then he sighs, sounding tired rather than annoyed. “Do whatever you want.”

Daniel perks up, trailing along behind Jisung as the other man trudges through the snow. He watches as Jisung takes his phone out of his pocket and unlocks it to the same Naver headline as before, before locking it again and tucking it away decisively.

“I’m Daniel,” he hurries to say, lengthening his stride to catch up. He kind of wishes that Jisung’s expression was visible for him to read, but he supposes he doesn’t have the right to wish anything about Jisung after feasting on him like a new-born without a single jot of self-control.

“And I really don’t care,” Jisung says flatly, which to be fair, Daniel probably deserves.

“You shouldn’t be out so late on your own, you know,” he continues insistently, resisting the urge to latch on to Jisung’s coat sleeve so he won’t get too far ahead. “It’s not safe. And I don’t mean me – I’m not all that dangerous really.”

Jisung stops so abruptly that Daniel plows right into him, sending the smaller man stumbling forward an ungraceful step. “Are you really going to follow me all the way home?” he demands, turning and folding his arms defensively before him, eyes narrowed.

Daniel drops his gaze immediately. “What if you get attacked by another vampire?” he mumbles, scuffing the tip of his wet sneakers further into the slushy snow. “And – well. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to – I mean, I shouldn’t have attacked you like that. I just – I feel bad about everything and I want to make it up to you.”

Jisung stares at him for a long while, his eyes dark and wary, before something about his posture seems to slump. “Fine,” he relents, quieter this time. “And only because you apologised.”

But his hand comes up to touch his neck gingerly as he turns, as if in pain, and Daniel doesn’t dare to follow too close as they travel the deserted streets together. They leave a twin set of footprints behind them, wavering and smudged in areas, parallel to each other but not quite.


	3. gardenia

Another curious thing about these two souls – the way others flock to them, the way they gather adoration from the masses without even seeming to try, as if part of some long-predestined plot. In some possibilities it is Jisung’s name that is known countrywide, in others it is Daniel who takes the world by storm, and in just as many both of them turn heads wherever they go.

But amidst these infinite variations, there is always the opportunity for the mundane. The utter banality of everyday life, passing unobtrusively away from the endless prying gazes of the critical public.

For instance, Daniel on a plane, fast asleep for most of the thirteen-hour flight from Canada to South Korea, and no one takes a second look at this softly-snuffling young man, long legs only half-covered by a generic airline blanket that is threatening to slip off his knees and onto the floor at any moment.

It is difficult to describe the emotions that shiver through him as he steps out of the plane and onto Korean ground for the first time in five years. He has always thought of his mother as home – wherever she is so he will be as well – but this – hearing the soft chatter of accented, lilting Korean all around him, and reading the perfectly-crafted Korean signs overhead – it all brings a peculiar, aching warmth to his chest.

Even the sights that accompany him out of the heart of the city feel refreshingly familiar, but Daniel doesn’t know if it’s just simple sentimentality talking or actual recognition. The town of his childhood is undeniably changed – a little less than he would have imagined for the passing of half a decade, but still unfamiliar enough to leave him flat-footed and gawking with awe.

It’s not home, not anymore, but it feels like a momentous sort of return anyway. Like coming back to something precious and beloved.

Daniel strolls through his old neighbourhood on the way to dinner that night, and for the first time in years, the name _Jisung_ enters his thoughts with a suddenness that surprises him. How long has it been since they last spoke, before the minutiae of everyday life and the chasm of distance pushed them apart? How long since Daniel pictured that smiling, beloved face in his mind and thought, with all the certainty of a righteous teenager, _I love him, I love him now and I’ll love him forever_?

He supposes he must be the only person ever to question the unforgettable quality of first love.

But what is meant to be will always come to pass regardless – some may call it fate, others destiny. Whatever it is, the universe does not forget as easily as Kang Daniel.

On his third day back in Busan, Daniel walks into a cafe, newly opened sometime in the past few years, and instantly comes face to face with the very person he has been thinking of.

Jisung doesn’t recognise him at first, probably because he doesn’t actually look over long enough to give Daniel a proper once-over. “Welcome to Café 101!” he chirps as he bustles past with a stack of trays in his hands. All Daniel sees is a blur of dark hair and white teeth, but there is no mistaking the cheery warmth in that voice, that stubborn Seoul accent that utterly refuses to be tamed despite years in Busan, and he feels something unexplainably strange happen to his stomach that he doesn’t want to think too hard about.

“Hello, hyung,” he says, his voice coming out tiny as he trails after the smaller man.

“Hello,” Jisung replies automatically as he sets the trays down. And then he freezes in the middle of straightening, before slowly turning to face Daniel with his mouth half-open. His jaw works soundlessly, slow delight suffusing his entire expression as he mouths Daniel’s name as if to himself, disbelievingly.

Daniel thinks back to all the messages that went unanswered, first for a day, and then for a week, and then forever. He thinks about a decade-old friendship that was slowly forgotten as he built himself a new life more than 8,000 kilometres away. He thinks that Jisung has the right to be cold, or angry, or simply indifferent – but in every iteration, Jisung has never been anything other than forgiving.

In every iteration, even in the darkest of times, Jisung has only ever been defined by love.

Daniel lets himself be jerked forward into a crushing hug, and even though he is the one enveloping Jisung with his wide frame, he gets the very same feeling as before. That he is finally returning, coming back to something precious and beloved after a long, long time.

And that feeling, he realises, is just as good as coming home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the shortest chapter, but also one of my favourites. In my head, Jisung owns that cafe; he's just the kind of boss who doubles up as whatever else he is needed to be bc, well, he's Jisung.


	4. edelweiss

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for character death, because it comes hand-in-hand with reincarnation.

Curious, the concept of parallel universes and alternate dimensions – but just as fascinating, the idea of eternal rebirth.

In every possibility, Jisung and Daniel cross paths at least once. It is an inarguable fact, the way the world works, governed neither by justice nor logic. In some, they live and die like a flame running out of wick, only ever existing briefly in that endless timeline. In others, they live and die and live and die, over and over again, fated to share the aging of the world with each other until the absolute end of time.

It is a beautiful thing, but terrible in its beauty.

For instance, in a life Jisung remembers but Daniel does not, and all Jisung can do is watch over his beloved from afar, refusing to intervene, because what if his presence prevents Daniel from finding someone else? From finding some other happiness? He sleeps alone at night, and dreams of Daniel’s lips on his, and Daniel’s dying breath in his ear, and Daniel’s laughter in the wind, and he thinks, _Maybe this will be one of the lives where we aren’t meant to be_. But they are, and years later he will sleep only after Daniel’s lips leave his, with Daniel’s teeth grinding by his ear, and Daniel’s laughter still in his dreams.

For instance, in a life Daniel remembers but Jisung does not, and he immediately takes it upon himself to be the most adorable, annoying, irresistible student he can possibly be. It never crosses his mind that he and Jisung might not end up together, that Jisung might not fall in love with him the way he already has, centuries ago – he is Jisung’s, and Jisung is his. To Daniel, it is as simple as that – at least, in the early lives. He preens and he laughs and he latches on to Jisung every opportunity he can get, basking in every curve-eyed smile that he manages to tease out. But for the first time in Daniel’s memory, Jisung doesn’t love him in quite the right way, and the final realisation feels just like heartbreak.

The lives in which they both remember nothing are the easiest. If they meet, they are the happiest they have ever been and ever will be. If they don’t, they will never miss what they have never known.

The lives in which they both remember everything are the hardest, but also the easiest. They know the ways in which they fit together, and the ways in which they don’t. They have perfected the art of being exquisitely happy together, but that also means that they no longer know how to be truly content apart. _Just live. Live the best life you can until we find each other, and trust that we will one day_. Jisung says that to Daniel every dozen or so lives, but even he finds it difficult to go on without looking out at least a single time for the one person his heart yearns for the most – a long-legged shadow whisking around the corner, or a familiar fragrance drifting on the breeze.

Sometimes they meet with years to spare, but sometimes their time together is measured in days, minutes, seconds – ticking by inexorably.

For instance, Daniel skidding to a halt beside the dying man, heaving in a pool of his own blood. The culprit is long gone, frightened away by the flashing lights of Daniel’s cruiser, and all he can do is drop to his knees in a desperate attempt at first aid before the ambulance arrives. He can’t spare even a second to look at the victim’s face, so intent is he on stemming the ominously constant flow of blood, and so he misses the way the man’s mouth parts, glazed eyes focusing in recognition for a bare second. Jisung dies moments later with Daniel’s name on his lips, his final words unheard. But the real tragedy is that in this life, Daniel remembers him too.

Thousands of years in, tens of thousands even, and still the lives of Yoon Jisung and Kang Daniel continue to tangle, emotions muddying irreparably, love and hate coexisting in every kiss they share. The hate is miniscule but undeniable, nurtured by the uncountable little ways they have hurt each other over the course of so many lives, in the ways lovers always do, both knowingly and unknowingly, in words and in deeds, every grievance multiplied tenfold by the sheer love they bear for each other.

But together they have seen the rise and fall of empires, the coming and going of era upon era – and perhaps, now, even the very end of the world.

“It’s global warming,” Jisung mutters, lashes fluttering as he peeks up to take in Daniel’s reaction. Daniel’s rumble of quiet laughter trembles all the way through his chest, and a jolt of pain flashes through his head at the minute movement.

“You say that every time some sort of natural disaster happens,” Daniel scoffs half-heartedly, fingers tenderly tracing the bony knobs of Jisung’s spine. His eyelids keep drifting shut, a combination of starvation and the unforgiving cold, but the sound of Jisung’s hoarse breaths in the still air are enough to keep him stubbornly awake. It’s the dust, he thinks tiredly, the way it gets everywhere – through cracks in the windowsills, rustling under folded sheets, clogging up throats and lungs.

Jisung sighs very quietly. “What would you call it then?” he asks, still smiling ever so faintly.

Daniel shrugs. “The world falling apart?” he suggests, just a tad petulantly, and then, more solemnly, “I think this is really the end. Don’t think there’s going to be much of a future for humans with the world like this.”

Jisung hums in acknowledgement, but Daniel knows that he doesn’t really care, not at this point. He’s ready to go, to leave the pain behind whether or not there’s anything waiting for them after this. Daniel is always the one who finds it harder to let go – he doesn’t want to be left behind, but he doesn’t want to leave Jisung all alone either.

Jisung shivers in his arms, and Daniel thinks desperately, _Don’t go, please don’t go_ , but at the very least he’s not selfish enough to say it out loud. It’s been so long – centuries and centuries beyond counting, and he knows that there are lives he doesn’t even remember. They used to swap stories on slow days, the good and the bad, telling each other of the times one of them had forgotten.

This is one life Daniel wouldn’t mind forgetting, but living through one more doesn’t sound so bad either. Just one more lifetime for them to love each other, completely and utterly.

Maybe he gets his wish, and maybe he doesn’t.

On a linear timeline, even eternal rebirth may come to an end in the face of extinction. Maybe that is the beauty of it, the beauty and the horror both.


	5. anemone

Some might call them fated, others destined – but what is fate compared to destiny?

For instance, in a world where the supernatural walk the earth, where Jisung is a vampire and Daniel a werewolf, it is almost a concrete fact that the two races are fated to be mortal enemies. But for these two individuals destined to meet in one way or another, from that meeting will the flowering of countless possibilities blossom. There is death in many of these possibilities, but in just as many there is love and friendship, and in yet others the meeting comes to naught, their existences glancing briefly off each other before continuing on their own separate paths.

So too are men and angels fated to dwell apart, but even angels have their own destinies written in the stars.

In this possibility, Jisung meets Daniel on Jeju Island, at the edge of a cliff overlooking the clear, blue-green sea.

Daniel is seated a small distance from the edge, long legs drawn up to his body, chin on his knees as he looks out over the roiling waters. He is a small, hunched figure as Jisung tops the slight rise, and both of them spot each other at the same moment, Daniel twisting around in sudden alarm and Jisung pausing in his steps with a jerk. The same hesitation flashes through both their eyes, until Daniel relaxes, presenting a tiny, hesitant smile.

Veiled from mortal sight, Jisung’s wings rustle anxiously as he considers the young man sitting before him. He watches, and he guards, but he’s never spoken to many humans before - angels are quiet, solitary beings, and he hasn’t even seen another of his own kind in millennia, certainly not since humans began to claim the world as their own.

But he likes it, the little communities that people build up around themselves, the warmth of their smiles and natures, the little gestures that they make specially for the ones that hold their affection. He has simply never had the opportunity to engage – not till now.

“Hi,” Daniel says as he stands, brushing grass off his jeans and squinting over at Jisung in the bright afternoon sun. Something about his posture is tense, uncertain, like he isn’t quite sure if he should run.

“Hello,” Jisung responds just as cautiously as he steps closer.

There is a taut silence as they size each other up carefully, before something seems to shake loose in Daniel and he relaxes minutely. “You don’t know who I am, do you?” he asks, and then he beams, the unexpected brightness of his smile making Jisung blink. “I’m Kang Daniel.”

Jisung inclines his head. “Jisung,” he says in return, more than a little confused, but something has opened Daniel’s floodgates, and all Jisung has to do is follow the man’s lead in the conversation. It’s strangely easy, even though he’s not all that familiar with many of the terms spilling from Daniel’s lips – it’s soothing, just listening to Daniel’s chatter, watching the way his eyes crinkle downwards as he laughs, and the way his hands fly everywhere as he describes a scene.

It’s fascinating, being so close to a human, to have Daniel’s attention fixed fully on him instead of being an unnoticed bystander.

Daniel is an important human, he gradually realises. Someone well-known who is so rarely alone that this solitary vacation is a luxury.

“Sometimes fans like to follow me around,” Daniel explains, teeth flashing in a sheepish smile. “I thought you were one of them at first.”

Jisung laughs. “No,” he says lightly, looking out at the greenery around them with his dark, pensive eyes. “I prefer the quiet places. I’m not too familiar with celebrities.”

“If you’re ever in Seoul, we should meet for a meal,” Daniel says a little later, just before he leaves, eyes bright and hopeful as he takes in Jisung’s expression, and Jisung can’t find it in himself to say no. He dutifully memorises the jumble of numbers that Daniel recites to him twice, and then waves as Daniel jogs away in something of a hurry.

There is something about the incessant busyness of humans that Jisung finds intriguing, the way they scurry about everywhere as if time is of the essence, never slowing down for even a moment to watch the world around them. But there is so much innocent curiosity in them, always questioning, always searching, always creating.

He only remembers Daniel months later, when he sees the familiar face on a large billboard in the city and the way the human had smiled at him comes to mind.

Daniel shrieks like the world is ending when he comes home to find Jisung seated at his kitchen counter, but he takes the revelation that angels exist with comparative grace.

“Oh, I’ve always known I had a guardian angel watching over me,” he says dismissively, and with such self-assurance that Jisung doesn’t care to correct him.

Daniel brings him everywhere after that – it’s easy with an angel for a companion, who can follow him even across continents. There is ice cream and wasabi and ramen to try, concerts and bowling and karaoke. Anything and everything he can possibly think of that Jisung has never experienced before.

It is startlingly overwhelming, but gloriously so – most of it, anyway.

“I will never understand the draw of alcohol,” Jisung murmurs, as he supports a stumbling, red-faced Daniel by his side, both of them cloaked safely in invisibility.

Daniel giggles in his ear and noses his way along Jisung’s neck, sniffing for something only he can identify. “That’s because you can’t get drunk,” he slurs, arms tightening about Jisung’s waist until he is clinging with all four limbs like an incredibly large sloth. He isn’t even all that drunk, just terribly needy. Besides, Jisung enjoys this closeness – Daniel always gives it out freely, and it’s warm and fond and comforting, everything he’s come to think of as _human_.

He enjoys it just as much when Daniel kisses him that night, sloppily and desperately, making him feel heated in a way he never has before. Jisung sees nothing wrong with it, not when Daniel has sighed to him time and again how lonely he is, how tired. Not when Daniel says nothing about it the next morning and kisses him again two nights later. He just draws Daniel closer with gentle strength and tries to kiss the melancholy out of his very soul, but there are some things that even angels cannot do.

Which is not to say that Jisung settles by Daniel’s side like a tame hound. He leaves periodically, soaring over the highest peaks and diving into the deepest chasms, watching over the very edges of the earth that he has sworn to protect. He flies far but he flies fast, and yet months always pass before he can return to this human who has captured his attention like no other.

It never really strikes him how long he leaves – for Jisung, it is but the blink of an eye between rolling out of bed and sliding back under the covers with Daniel once more – not until Daniel catches his wrist early one morning and mumbles, “Stay.” There is something about Daniel that makes Jisung’s heart catch – the way he wears his heart on his sleeve, the way he looks at Jisung and sees him truly.

“I will always come back to you,” he says softly, palm cupping Daniel’s cheek, rough with stubble where once he woke with his skin still baby-smooth. It is then that Jisung sees how Daniel has changed, his features defined with the passing years and his softness chiselled away into something more careworn, all in the short span between their first meeting and now.

It leaves Jisung feeling shaken, the realisation of how swiftly the years can pass without his knowledge, and how much Daniel changes each time he so much as looks away.

He runs his thumb along Daniel’s cheekbone tenderly, and that day he crawls back into bed and curls against the person he loves most in this whole universe, in all the endless eons he has ever existed. Jisung has faced monsters and demons, each more savage than the last, but never has he felt fear of the kind that settles over him that morning, weighing his feathers down with dread.

Slowly, he unfurls a single wing and drapes it over them both, cocooning them in a warm, ticklish nest, but even Daniel’s giggle at the sudden movement can’t make him smile.

He starts to see it in every corner of their lives from then on – the fine lines that develop at the edges of Daniel’s eyes even when he isn’t smiling, the way his joints ache longer and harder each time he comes home from a schedule. Jisung feels like he is holding his breath in terror, even as the world continues to spin unfeelingly around him.

He’s never belonged like this before, to anywhere or to anyone. Angels have always been wanderers, nomads, fated to travel for their entire immortal existence. A strange, heavy breathlessness settles in his chest every time Daniel wraps him in his arms, or kisses him, or whispers in his ear, or simply mutters sleepily at his side, and it takes him a long time to identify this feeling.

 _Nostalgia_. Change is coming, and Jisung is already homesick for a present that he is still residing in.

“I love you,” he says every time he returns, sweeping Daniel up in his arms and basking in the sound of his laughter, secure in the knowledge that this time, he is not too late. Their hourglass is not yet empty.

When the last grain of sand runs out, Daniel leaves the world not only beloved by millions, but also an angel’s first love – and first grief.

A curious phenomenon is observed at his funeral, something like a reverse shooting star, bursting from the ground and arcing across the sky in a blaze of brilliance until it winks out in the distance, but there is no one alive to understand the sight. In its wake, a single white feather floats down on the spring breeze, landing on the polished wood a moment before the first clod of dirt falls.


	6. bleeding heart

There is much to be said against second chances, but more often than not they are granted anyway. Out of love, out of fear, out of hope.

It is only that in this case, Jisung isn’t sure if the fault lies with him for expecting too much, or with Daniel for caring too little.

He spends his daylight hours working, and when he gets home in the evenings Daniel is never there. He is either practicing for his next showcase, or out with his university friends, or still in the library with his study group, or countless other reasons that mean very little to Jisung except for the fact that they mean Daniel is not here, with him.

He doesn’t mind so much at first. He still remembers what it was like to be a student, the long, aching hours spent with friends and textbooks. He is also very cognizant of the fact that he would probably have gone out much more if he had actually been popular back then – he hadn’t been, but Daniel is, and very much so.

But now, it just feels like living with a roommate whose schedule never actually coincides with his.

Sometimes he will text in the middle of the day, _dinner tonight??_ and Daniel will reply, fully apologetic, that he already has dinner plans for the day. He tries _dinner this week??_ next, but somehow Daniel always something planned each day, and Jisung simply doesn’t have the meanness in him to send back _dinner this month??_ in response.

Daniel, at least, is his on Sundays. Not Saturdays, because Saturdays are for dance – but on Sundays Jisung wakes up with Daniel’s arm flung over him, nose against his nape and breath whistling against his bare skin. Every Sunday, they go out for brunch, and Daniel regales Jisung with tales of the past week as he grins so hard his eyes disappear, while Jisung wonders if Daniel smiles like that when he talks about the two of them. If he even ever talks about them.

Sunday afternoons vary – they catch a movie sometimes, or traverse the streets and buy little trinkets for each other for fun, or just head home and curl up together, Daniel tapping away on his phone while Jisung dozes contently against his shoulder. Occasionally they make dinner together, Daniel more of a nuisance than any actual help as he bends to rest his chin on Jisung’s shoulder, arms snaking about his boyfriend’s waist and giggling whenever he causes Jisung to mess up an egg flip.

At night, he reads to Daniel – an article or a short story, whatever catches their fancy. “You have such a nice voice, hyung,” Daniel always says drowsily, head pillowed on Jisung’s thigh. And then they sleep, and the next morning, Jisung will peek in at a still-sleeping Daniel before he leaves for work, knowing that it will most likely be the last glimpse he gets of his boyfriend before Sunday comes again.

His heart aches with how much love it holds for this silly boy named Kang Daniel, but Jisung doesn’t know how long he can keep going like this.

The thing is that he knows Daniel doesn’t mean to hurt anyone. He never does. He’s just never been the best at saying no to his friends, and Jisung, who has been by his side for more than a decade, is merely the easiest sacrifice.

He breaks up with Daniel on a Wednesday night. Daniel looks startled, scared almost, to see Jisung seated on the couch waiting for him when he gets home just past midnight, and his jaw drops open halfway before he snaps it shut.

“Niel-ah,” Jisung breathes out even before Daniel can get a word in edgewise, before he can lose his nerve completely. Already he is wringing his hands together nervously as he forces himself to spit the words out, like they are burning on his tongue.

“I don’t think this is working out anymore. Us. Our relationship.” He rocks back on his heels, wanting to sink into the floor as he watches a multitude of emotions flash across Daniel’s face at that. Confusion, shock, and finally, pain.

“But – why?” Daniel’s voice comes out tiny and beaten after a long moment of silence, and Jisung hates himself a little for making Daniel sound that way.

Jisung aches to take Daniel’s hands in his, to throw his arms around Daniel’s neck and pepper his crestfallen face with kisses, but he holds himself firm where he stands, shoulders twinging dully from the tension in his posture.

“Because being with you is hurting me,” he says, and his voice cracks like crystal, his words shying away from the open air. “We live together and we see each other exactly once a week because you never make the effort to spend any more time with me than that. You’re never the one who texts me first, did you realise? When is the last time you even thought of me without me messaging you? You’re just used to having me around – you don’t love me in that way, Niel. You really don’t. You’re just treating me like a – I don’t know, like someone who’s _not_ your boyfriend.”

Jisung sucks in a breath and closes his eyes, feeling the prickling of tears behind his lids.

He doesn’t even know why he is doing this. He doesn’t _really_ want to leave Daniel – maybe it would be better to stay and accept whatever scraps of affection Daniel can spare for him, if it means waking up beside the person he loves every morning, and kissing him goodnight on Sundays, and sharing ice cream on their anniversary. Some tiny part of Jisung, tucked all the way in the back of his mind, is telling him that he deserves better, but a life without Kang Daniel in it doesn’t sound very much better.

“Hyung –” Daniel is the one crying now, face crumpling as he walks around the coffee table to throw himself into Jisung’s arms. “Please don’t – I love you, I really do. I won’t – I’ll do better, I promise. Please don’t break up with me – _please_.”

With Daniel’s arms tight around him, Jisung abruptly bursts into tears as well.

There is a possibility in which he steels himself and pulls away, out of Daniel’s grip, and he sleeps on the couch that night as they both cry themselves to sleep. Perhaps they manage to fix things and find their way back to each other, properly this time, or perhaps they never do.

But in this possibility, Jisung crumbles.

He winds his fingers tight in the sleeves of Daniel’s turtleneck and buries his face in Daniel’s chest, his tears soaking swiftly into the fabric. “Okay, okay, I’m sorry,” he whispers. “I’m sorry, I won’t – I won’t, Niel. We won’t break up. I’m sorry – I’m just so tired, but I love you. I love you so much.”

This is how it always goes with second chances – the one who loves more, and fears more, and hopes more, backed into a corner, a single option pushed to the forefront of choices. Out of everything, for better or for worse, they choose forgiveness every time.

Jisung and Daniel hold each other close for a long time, and when they finally pull apart – from there, the possibilities begin.


	7. forget-me-not

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Is it just me or did these drabbles get more pretentious as the chapters progressed? Either way, thanks for sticking it out this far for our winter and spring blossoms, folks :)

There is, admittedly, an allure to the fleeting nature of love and life, the way passion and adoration are squeezed into a finite amount of time, the desperate desire to remember and be remembered when all is said and done. But there is something just as enchanting about the immortal nature of love and grief, when one half of a whole is left to bear the burden of existence alone for the rest of time.

As for the soul-deep, patient affection of those beings whose lives have no conceivable end – maybe theirs truly is the most fortunate, wondrous love of all.

In this possibility, Daniel forms tens of thousands of years after Jisung first gains consciousness. It’s not a long time, in the grand scheme of things. Much like a child grows in its mother, he sleeps as the earth shifts, as lava bubbles up between the cracks in the ground and hardens to stone, reaching higher and higher towards the periwinkle sky with every eruption. Through it all, Daniel slumbers, snug in the very middle of the volcano forming around him, fed by its boiling heat until one day, finally, his eyes open.

Even then, it is a long, long time before he finally meets Jisung. Long enough for the earth to shift even further beneath him, for his volcano to simmer and go dormant, for Jisung’s river to slowly, slowly angle its course so that it snakes into Daniel’s territory, bubbling merrily on its way down to the ocean.

Long before humans ever walk the earth, the elementals are the very first beings to favour the shape that will later come to be known as _humanoid_.

So many of them are as old as the earth itself, or almost as, and they move with the unhurried, relentless ease of the passing seasons in everything they do.

For hundreds of years, Daniel watches Jisung with a bland, lazy curiosity. He sees Jisung lie on the banks of his river, clear eyes fixed on the slowly-passing clouds, a dark, damp stain spreading all around him as he leaks, drop by drop, into the thirsty soil. He sees Jisung tread with gentle, noiseless steps into the woods that have sprung up out of the fertile soil at the base of Daniel’s volcano, the sunlight dappling off his skin like diamonds where it filters through the quivering leaves. He sees the way the water ripples just before Jisung emerges, droplets showering off him as his head turns and his eyes fix right on Daniel himself, far in the distance.

They walk together for another thousand years, on the occasions when neither of them is drifting and restful, only semi-conscious of the meaningless passing of time around them. Daniel burns just as brightly as his home, both inside and out, and he leaves the gentle sizzle of smoking undergrowth wherever he walks. Jisung trails behind him, clear river water spilling from his sides with every step like a bowl filled to overflowing, dousing the sparks left in Daniel’s wake. They leave scorch marks and moist earth along the base of Daniel’s volcano, and by the long shore of Jisung’s river, and between the trees where the wood nymphs dwell.

In winter, the river freezes over and Jisung slows with it, sluggish and drowsy. Often, in the coldest months, he slips back into the water and lets himself disperse, as close to hibernation as a water spirit can get. Daniel makes the trip down to the river’s edge sometimes, when he himself is not dozing in the cold. He sits on the snow-covered dirt and sets his feet on the ice until he melts a neat hole right through, a massive cloud of steam bursting into the air the moment his toes touch the water, and there he stays, waiting for the return of a companion who is everywhere and nowhere all at once.

The bond between them cannot be called passionate or thrilling – but it runs unimaginably long and unfathomably deep. It is contentment and devotion in the purest sense, heedless of the passing of the ages, secure in the knowledge that what they have is forever.

Eventually, humans begin to settle by Jisung’s river, at the foot of Daniel’s volcano, and they never do realise the miracle that they witness every time the volcano hisses overhead, belching out a thick cloud of ash and steam. The union of fire and water, the rare embrace between two spirits of such vastly opposing natures, balancing each other for all eternity. If they look closely, they might even see the river rushing more quickly in those brief moments, swelling and cresting like a wild thing, reflecting an ardour that they can never hope to understand or experience.

The elementals have outlived the dinosaurs and the wyverns, and they will surely outlive Man, and whatever else may come after, until the Earth itself ceases to exist.

Such too is the power linking Jisung and Daniel – in every iteration, in every possibility, in every dimension – they will meet, and meet again and again and again, until the very universe itself is no more. Such is the power of destiny.


End file.
